Hydrodynamics and mass transfer study of oil-water micro-emulsion in a three phase external loop airlift reactor

In this study, the impact of operating conditions, liquid properties and loading of a solid phase on the hydrodynamics and mass transfer coefficient in an airlift reactor with an external loop was investigated. The gas phase sparged through the reactor was air. Oil-in-water micro emulsions containing diesel, kerosene, heavy naphtha and light naphtha made up the liquid phase with an oil concentration of 5%. The impact of the solid phase was studied with solid loadings of 0, 0.25 and 0.5 wt%. The results showed that light naphtha which had the lowest density, viscosity and surface tension had the highest mass transfer and gas holdup and the lowest liquid circulation velocity. Solid addition decreased the gas holdup and mass transfer while increasing the liquid circulation velocity. This effect was considerable on the parameters above. In addition, a correlation based on dimensionless numbers was gained to predict the Sherwood number. Good agreement was observed between the correlated and experimental values.